Children’s Hospital New Orleans announced the appointment of Lou Fragoso as the organization’s chief administrative officer. As chief administrative officer, Fragoso will serve as a senior adviser to Children’s Hospital CEO, John Nickens IV, and will manage a wide range of administrative and executive responsibilities.
Fragoso will work closely with CHNOLA physician leaders to further develop and grow the organization’s provider services infrastructure to help attract and retain top pediatric provider talent. Later this year, CHNOLA will formally introduce a provider practice plan designed to allow physicians to govern physicians, the first of its kind for pediatrics in Louisiana. Fragoso will serve as the primary administrative partner for the practice plan. Fragoso will be charged with expanding upon CHNOLA’s statewide network of pediatric specialty centers and advanced care capabilities by spearheading key business development and partnership initiatives throughout the state and region.
Fragoso joins CHNOLA after most recently serving as president of the Texas Children’s Health Plan (TCHP), the nation’s first and largest Medicaid health maintenance organization created just for children. Under his leadership, TCHP underwent a cultural and financial turnaround. Fragoso fully integrated TCHP into the Texas Children’s system to enable and strengthen physician partnerships, drive better patient outcomes, and reduce the cost of care for TCHP members. This integration, along with building a network of community partners, set the stage for the launch of the Texas Children’s Population Health initiative.
Prior to TCHP, Fragoso served as the vice president of business operations at Texas Children’s Pediatrics. In this role, Fragoso partnered with Texas Children’s Community and Emergency Department staff and pediatricians to create and establish a network of pediatric urgent care clinics, which increased access to pediatric primary care, reduced the cost of care, and relieved the overcrowding of low-acuity Emergency Department visits.
After completing a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting at Loyola University Chicago, Fragoso began his career in accounting at KPMG. He went on to hold senior finance and accounting roles at Resurrection Health Care (now Presence Health), Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and Baylor College of Medicine.